


Last Light Fading

by Paradoxides



Category: Sunshine - Robin McKinley
Genre: F/M, I'll probably update these but it's late rn, Too many tags give away the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 09:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradoxides/pseuds/Paradoxides
Summary: The goddess of pain has disappeared, and almost no one has noticed.Constantine has an urgent request; he needs to meet Yolande. But before Rae can set up a meeting, he too disappears.Rae is forced to leave the bakery and investigate.





	1. Chapter 1

It was Mel, in the end, who put the boot in. Of course he had no idea that Con had been steadily wearing me down over the eight odd months since... Bo... and looked mildly perturbed when I capitulated so easily. I think he had perhaps been spoiling for a heated disagreement followed by a just-as-heated make up session shortly afterwards.

But beyond his insistence that his budding solar-powered sorcerer girlfriend be somehow trained to avoid lethal accidents, he had no more idea of where to find a suitable teacher than I did. And so it was that I tucked a generously stuffed paper bag full of baked treats under my arm, girded my loins (so to speak) and climbed the rickety steps to Yolande's wisteria-bedecked verandah with my request between my teeth.

She was girlishly delighted to be asked, and barely contained an impish smile as she turned away from me to plate my heap of offerings with a little more dignity. Late morning sun dappled my grateful skin with gentle, invigorating energy, and a handful of bees availed themselves of the gracefully swaying lilac blooms. As she busied herself with herbal tea brewed in a clear glass teapot, she added, 'I do have one condition, my dear.' She handed me a cup, and pushed a china pot of honey towards me, motioning me to sit on the painted cast iron chair opposite. 'I would like to meet your friend who visits my home. I think it is about time, and very proper.'

I could hardly dispute this. She was certainly by now a friend as well as my landlady, and soon was to be my teacher. She was more than entitled to be introduced to all acquaintances of mine who spent time in her home, not least if any of them were ancient enemies of humanity, which Con, indisputably, was, even though he clearly made exceptions. I nodded slowly and sipped my tea, busying my mouth with hot, sweet liquid as I tried to imagine whether he would have any objections.

I thought not. Propriety was rooted as deep in his old soul as it was in Yolande's, and she spoke no less than the truth. "I'll speak to him tonight," I replied.

Her eyes sparkled. "Whenever most convenient," she said gracefully. "With a little notice I can make myself available at any time between dusk and dawn. Now, my dear," and she reached above one of the thick wooden beams overhead, patted around the vines, and withdrew a small folded paper object, handing it to me. It was a bird, as I could see on closer inspection, simply crafted out of meticulously-folded sky blue paper and covered with lines of text written in a tiny, neat hand. "Hold this cupped between your palms, so that as little light as possible filters through."

I did as she asked. I could barely feel the slight weight of the little thing, resting on its folded points against the skin of my palms.

"Close your eyes. Try to think down your arms, into your hands. Understand without seeing what is inside them. Feel what it wants you to feel. Relax your conscious mind and let your instinctive mind wander."

My conscious mind is always busy, fizzing over with to-do lists - mainly recipe related - ingredients to order, quantities, preparation for the next day and the next week. Such is the slightly neurotic mind of a professional baker. I'm not good at letting it go in case I've forgotten something and the thought is lost forever. It's actually my nightmare (not counting the actual nightmares I've lived through) to think of the ultimate recipe and then forget it before I could write it down. Seriously, I've dreamed about this and woken up in a cold sweat, scrambling for a pencil or even a sharp knife to open a vein for ink. The recipes themselves never make much sense, but that's the deception of dreams; the emotions they engender are real, and we are vulnerable to them until they fade away. How many times have you been angry- perhaps cheated on, or snubbed, or stolen from in a dream and woken up in a furious anger you know is unreasonable; and yet it lingers and ruins your morning? 

Something between my fingers gave a weak flutter, like a tiny chick stretching its wings. For just a short moment my hands were enveloped in a feeling of airy warmth; not a physical heat, but a feeling of safety, of assured welcome, a full belly, a lack of predators, a comfortable nest. As soon as I had felt this, it was gone. I opened my hands. Where the folded points had touched my skin, the blue of the paper had drained to a bright golden yellow. 

Yolande's eyes widened. She took it from me and inspected it, held delicately between her thumb and forefinger. "Very interesting," she breathed. "I'm sure you had not meant to change it, but..."

I was crestfallen. Memories of the ugly ring surfaced unbidden. "Is it broken?" I enquired, biting my lip nervously.

"No, not at all." She cupped it herself and closed her eyes. "I would not have thought to weave curiosity into a bird ward, but it works well. Birds are certainly very curious creatures. Close kin to you, I think. Beings of the sun and air."

She opened her eyes and stood to replace the little figure on its perch out of sight. 

"What exactly is it for?" I asked her, wondering why birds would need a ward for a house when we lived beside a nature reserve. "There's hardly a shortage of trees these days."

Yolande sat down and waved a hand vaguely, indicating the house, verandah and garden. "That's really the point, dear," she replied. "Why would they nest here and grace us with song unless it was somewhere they felt particularly safe in?" As if to agree, a goldfinch chose that particular moment to flit down and peck at the sweet crumbs littering the boards underneath the wrought iron table.

\---------

It was, in fact, several nights later that Constantine showed up next. He looked slightly greyer than normal, as if he was having trouble sleeping, but brushed off my concerns with his usual placid impassivity. 

"It is not sleep that I need," is all he would say on the subject. "But I am... grateful for your concern. You are kind." There was a pregnant pause, long even by his standards. I was about to open my mouth and suggest we resume our study of a pile of dusty, cracking-leather bound books he had thought might be useful, when he then said, "Your landlady. Might she still be awake at this hour?"

"How did you know she wanted to see you?" I asked. Had I subconsciously conveyed the message somehow? I didn't think I had. The last several days had been exhausting hours in the bakery, making sure Paulie had everything he needed to take over full time operations so I could take some time off to study ward craft with Yolande for a few months. She wasn't sure how much she could, or should, teach me- not wanting to obscure or worse, obstruct, more obvious avenues of learning, but thought that most sorcerors should learn the basics of how to read and interpret wards. I had almost forgotten about her request.

"I did not know," he replied. "I would seek her opinion on a certain topic."

I gave him a level gaze. Normally he would crack and offer up more information, but this time he cocked his head slightly - Con is a quick study and an unscrupulous mimic, sometimes - and gazed unconcernedly back at me, his eyes a deep, reflective sea-green rather than their usual clear emerald. Whatever it was, he didn't want me to know before asking her. So it was something to worry about, and how many things really worry a master vampire? Either that or he was wondering what to get me for my birthday, but he has piles of ridiculously priceless magical crap in his earth-place if he's ever stuck for a gift. He's also as stubborn as a mule when he wants to be, so I left it.

"Well, she does want to meet you. As a courtesy. She asked me to set up a date and she would stay awake until whenever, so... Let me give her some notice. Tomorrow night?" I thought he looked faintly anxious, but hid it quickly. 

"Call me as the last light is fading," he said firmly. "I will come as immediately as I can." 

There was something urgent about him that night, though I could not put my finger on what it might be. There was an emphasis, an intensity, belied by his usual liquidity in speech and movement, something other than his normal Otherness. An occasional jarringly fast, disharmonious note in his quiet, dissonant symphony. A sense that he was somehow unbalanced in a way I couldn't quite comprehend. 

After an hour or so of skimming through archaic text as dry and brittle as a hangover and finding absolutely nothing remotely relevant or interesting, he carefully placed his tome back on the pile. His fingertips on it were pale with pressure, much paler than his colourless skin. 

"Sunshine." He said my name, even though I was already watching him. He did that occasionally, like a tic, or some kind of introspective aid, or just to prove he still could. Bo, the only other master vampire I had met (if you can call that messy slaughter a meeting) could not vocalise a word so loaded with anathema. Names have power, indeed.

Con looked to the dark window, restless longing the most naked emotion I had ever seen in his eyes. 

"You should go," I told him, artfully careless. If he wanted company, he would hold out his hand for me to take, like an old school gentleman. But he did not. He unfolded himself and flowed closer, stopping within arm's reach and looking down at me from his considerable height. "Sunshine," he began again, then stopped. "Rae. Promise me something. Until I return, do not be alone. I will not stray far from you this night, and I believe you will have a 'lift to work' in the morning... But please, set my mind at ease."

What in Shiva's vast desert...? Between now and less than twenty four hours in the future, what was he expecting to happen? Not a sniff of the unexpected for months. Even SOF were fat and happy these days; no more dry guys, no more Jain-the-goddess-of-pain, even the werefront was quiet and reasonably well-behaved. A zombie had been intercepted a mile outside No Town, and that was unusual- you rarely just saw one. 

I didn't think Con had zombies on his mind. "Okay," I agreed. "I solemnly swear I won't leave myself alone."

His eyes narrowed. "I won't be alone at any point," I insisted. "I'll ride to work with Mel, spend all Kali-damned day slaving over a stove with a thousand demanding customers flinging themselves at the next hot thing to emerge from my oven. Paulie and Charlie and my mother and at least four other members of staff will be around. And I'll have to get a lift home, because I won't have my car with me." I stood up and gave him a gentle prod in the centre of his chest. "And then I will see you again. Satisfied?"

In answer, he gathered up my hand in both of his, turned it over a few times as if studying it, and then raised it to his lips. Cool and dry against my skin, but slightly chapped. Dehydrated, I thought with a faint, familiar pang of unease and did not regret staying in this evening.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't Mel in the morning. It was Pat, leaning against a nondescript silver sedan and flicking through a printed magazine on fly fishing. 

"Miserable weather," he noted by way of greeting, flicking a disdainful hand at the humid condensation on the front windscreen. The sky was grey-green and far too close for my liking.

"Looks like thunder," I replied, squinting at the sky as if to warn it not to rain on my parade. The dampness felt like sweat and somewhat like static, confusing my hair follicles and making me shiver despite the heat. "AC working?"

"Hell's yes," Pat said with feeling, and yanked open the door on my side before shimmying around to the driver's. "After you, Rae."

"I thought Mel would be here," I confessed as he shifted stick into third gear down the bumpy track. "I'm a bit ashamed to be grateful it's someone with a comfy car. Your first round is on me today."

He looked a bit guilty. "I shouldn't be that easy to bribe," he admitted. "But it was Mel's suggestion and, well. Charlie agreed, and since officially there's little to do these days except keep an eye on things... Only if you accept," he added hastily. "It's not compulsory. Just a courtesy ride whenever you want it, unofficially, from a friend-"

"Pat," I said firmly. "It's fine. I accept. I also accept that my food makes people do foolish things and that I can benefit from them. Quid pro quo, my friend, I like being comfortable."

He relaxed, and concentrated on getting as smoothly as possible to the end of the track and on to the main road towards town. It was still just after dawn, and the road between ours and the next closest town - never busy at the best of times - was as good as deserted. Eerie with the threatening weather, but normal. 

"Feel free to take your time looking for a new car," he said, sounding more assured. "This is gravy train for me. Oh, and, um, I haven't told the others or there would be a queue at your house every morning." 

I laughed outright at that. A queue of SOF agents getting steadily chubbier on all-you-can-eat-in-a-day meals at Charlie's. What a great mental picture.

"No chance," I said. "What if we have a sudden plague of zombies and you're all so out of shape you can barely lift your forks? Nope, you'll be the only one rolling away from them. I won't be held responsible for the zombification of all I know and love."

"Rae!" He protested, eyes wide with mock outrage. "Such vile calumnies. You wound me." 

I punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Eyes on the road, please. If you crash us, it's Mel and Charlie who'll team up to wound you. And you can kiss goodbye to free food."

He chuckled, sounding not in the least worried. "Also, no chance of zombies. You know that one we caught the other day? Not contagious. Must have eaten some of the laced bait they're developing up north. It'll still go for your brains if you let it, but we won't have to burn your corpse afterwards."

Lovely. I gave him a sideways grimace, but there was no stopping him now. I knew he had a brother, but I don't think there were many non-SOF he could talk to about what was obviously his passion. I was a safe bet; he was well aware of my dark net connection and I'd had personal, up close, in-your-face experience. I was willing to bet he was even slightly envious of it. 

I interrupted his rambling, gory monologue on the undead to ask; "Anyone heard how the goddess is doing in her new role? No one come screaming out of the woods yet?"

Pat frowned. "New role?" 

"Well... Didn't she transfer? I overheard you all talking about it a while ago."

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, like a weightlifter about to heave. "That's right... We all thought she had. Or maybe she did, and then... Well, she's gone." 

What. "Gone? How 'gone' is gone?"

"Damnedest thing," Pat said slowly. "Yeah, we were all talking about a transfer. And then, no one could remember where to, or how we had heard about it. Then the Chief gets pissed and just asks Head Office, you know, save some time, and... Nothing. 'Who?' they say. 'Never heard of her. You must have the wrong name.' "

He let me digest this in astonished silence. "Maybe she's gone undercover?"

He scoffed. "Undercover as an actual demon from a hell dimension? She sure could pull that off. Nah. We don't do undercover." He paused and then went on, "The other funny thing is, until you mentioned her, I hadn't thought about her for months."

He slowed down his driving pace and we shared a glance. "Hold that thought," he said grimly. "At least until we all get together in the café. Just in case I happen to forget again."

Thunder grumbled, a fair way off still. As we turned into the last corner, rain started lashing down in great deafening heavy sheets, and it was so dark I wondered, fleetingly, if Con could appear unaided. But the café was in front of us, and Pat parked up on the kerb as close as he was able, and we both dashed through the torrent into the dry bakery.

Pat hovered by the oven, rotating himself slowly like a piglet on a spit in an effort to dry while I busied up with the dough. He looked like he was mumbling fragments of our conversation in order to avoid forgetting it. I desperately wanted there to be an easy, rational solution but truthfully, she had terrified me, and now she was somewhere out in the world, unfettered by SOF regulations. I made a mental note to tell Con that evening.

Theo was the only agent that turned up before lunch. He looked pale, and informed us that a vomiting bug was plaguing those colleagues who had patronised a certain dive bar the previous evening. Pat was amused, and more than smug- he had foregone the bar to collect me from home in the early hours, and thus had been the butt of jokes all yesterday afternoon. Only Theo's part blood constitution saved him. 

He turned visibly greener when Pat brought up the goddess. 

"How in the nine hells did I forget about her?" he said, baffled and angry. "That witch and her mind stuff. Kali's saggy balls."

Pat nodded. "I think she got us good. We gotta check if she left anything. Chief is gonna blow." 

"This is not going to be fun," Theo grumbled. "You got anything for a hangover, Rae?"

"Oh my. I thought it was a bug?" I asked him primly. He groaned. "Feel too awful to lie to you, Sunshine, my soul's hanging half outta my body right now."

"Hold on." I went back into the bakery and fished out two fresh cinnamon buns. It took me two minutes to whip up a thick, oozingly sweet and strong coffee buttercream icing which melted and soaked thoroughly into the buns. "Call them cappuccino rolls," I said with a wink, handing them over in a sturdy card box. "Use them wisely."

He took a deep lungful breath of them and groaned happily. "On the house. Experimental. I'll be asking for feedback," I warned. "Pat, call me if you need a reminder?"

He thought about it. "All things considered, Rae, I'd be grateful if you gave me a call, in, say, one hour? Just in case?"

Just in case they got back to base and forgot what they were looking for. She'd trolled me twice - scanned my mind without consent - but it looked like she maybe hadn't had time or opportunity to do whatever she had done to her colleagues. "Sure thing, Pat. Speak soon. See you tomorrow morning?"

He waved assent and steered Theo to the door, clutching his box like a life belt.


	3. Chapter 3

Mel had taken the day off, it transpired. So yeah, he'd arranged for me to be collected in the morning, and had taken his bike out of town, according to Charlie, who gave me a lift home. He had meant to be back in the afternoon but the storm hit and stayed most of the day, so Charlie had sent him a message not to worry about me and to drive slowly or stay overnight. And so it was that I spent none of my day alone, as per strange request. I suspected it had a lot to do with Con's odd mood, and whatever he wanted to ask Yolande. 

A meeting which, I realised with some panic, I had yet to schedule. 

\--------

She was taken aback when I told her that Con wanted to see her urgently. She was in her little sitting room, writing a letter and snacking on shelled walnuts when I knocked guiltily on her door. 

"He wouldn't say why?" She mused, rising and walking to peer out at the rapidly darkening sky. The thunder had passed by directly overhead, hung around for a bit and was now wandering into the middle distance, but we could still feel an occasional bassy purr. 

I shook my head. 

"Then I will wait right here," she said. "Until he arrives. You are welcome to wait with me. Do you think he would prefer to contact you first?" 

A fair question, but I was relatively certain a five hundred year old vampire wouldn't require a pep talk before a chat with my landlady. "He'll just knock when he arrives, I suppose," was my guess. "He prefers to be invited in."

She hmmmm'd thoughtfully. "I had heard that about his kind. Is it a hard and fast rule?"

I didn't know. "It seemed... rude to ask. I don't think all of the rules apply to him, anyway." 

She motioned me to a chair and poured me a cup of tea, this time from a chipped white bone china teapot with a hand painted floral pattern. It smelled mildly of chamomile and something more leafy. 

"Green tea with chamomile," she supplied. " Quite hard to find these days, without our trading links to the East. But I find it's best not to hoard these things. Much better to share them with good company." She replaced the teapot on a little stand with a single tea light burning beneath it. I thought Constantine would certainly appreciate the effort.

We waited, and chatted. She was perturbed to hear about the disappearance of the goddess, and promised to give it some further thought, but had no further ideas to add. "Mind stuff," she said with a delicate shudder, "is something I will never understand, and those who willingly use it, well. Invading a mind with full consent is bad enough, but without, as she did to you, is unconscionable. She is clearly a dangerous and unscrupulous person." There was a colour in her cheeks that spoke to me of her outrage, but she sipped her tea with an iron composure and said no more on the subject. 

As the night closed further in, and Con didn't appear, I began to worry. 'Con,' I thought hard at him, 'where are you? Call me if you are in trouble, damnit.'

No answer. Only the fuzz of cicadas after rain from beyond the darkened glass. 

"This isn't like him," I said, partly an apology, partly a plea. "He keeps his word. Something's up." 

She pursed her lips in thought. "You are accustomed to walking his short paths? Good. Then perhaps you should seek him out. Take this." She retrieved a small cloth drawstring bag from her sideboard. "A strong ward against mind intrusion. I have never had occasion to use it, so it should still be at full capacity. Just tuck it into a pocket."

I could feel it's strength, eagerly burrowing against me and keen to be used. "How do I use it?"

"Hopefully you won't have to, my dear," she said. "But you don't have to think about it. It will protect you as long as you hold on to it. And take this," she rummaged in her purse and pulled out a cork, stained wine red at one end. "General purpose alarm. If it stops buzzing, duck and hide."

Comforting. I tucked the cork into my bra, where it pulsed a little uncomfortably against my skin to remind me it was working. Then I summoned a breath and all the calm I could muster, and stepped out of the door and into the short roads.

\--------

I find 'short' is a misnomer. It is a longer way than the chaotic hurtling that took me to Constantine's home the first time, but both ways are somehow outside time. This is like walking into thick treacle, getting slower and more resistant the deeper you go. It doesn't really look like much but if I had to visualise it, perhaps like stepping stones over a dark lake. In the fog. It feels like others are walking in the same space, although on different paths, and they are no more than wraithlike presences at most, like catching snatches of conversation at the end of a tunnel. Con had suggested that all vampires knew these paths, so I was glad not to be seen alone. 

His 'earth-place' was an underground (possibly located somewhere on physical earth) cellar with several adjoining rooms. If I was a little less charitable I might call it a fancy mausoleum; the room he 'sleeps' in is bare, glassy marble with nothing to make it comfortable. I had come upon him once in sleep; he was splayed out naked on the polished floor. It had made me think that he just staggered in and collapsed every morning without his dignity, and I felt a little sad for him.

He was not here now. I was touched and slightly amused to see that he had made one concession to my human world - there was a single down-stuffed pillow on his glossy floor that told me he had been paying attention during the few times spent in my bed. 'Oh, Con. Where are you?' I pleaded, throwing my silent voice into the void. 

I sat down in the main room, though it was something like a hoarder's paradise. A slightly mouldering purple velvet sofa hidden partially behind a bookcase containing yet more leather bound books and various sculptures and bric-a-brac was the only option for comfortable seating. An enormous gilded sculpture of a winged horse dominated one corner of the room, lit by a hanging candelabra that seemed enchanted to never go out. He had told me that this was his master's suite, and I had not been here without him for any significant period of time. 

'Con, I'm in your earth-place,' I threw out. 'I'm going to look for some way to find you.' That should cover my back if he were to suddenly manifest and try to act indignant that I was rummaging around in his personal effects. 

I must have spent a good hour in that treasury room, looking for some clue about him. But there was nothing of personal value, except a worn, barely decipherable diary intermittently dated from 1506 to 1522, and filled with excerpts in a hasty hand and a foreign language - possibly French or Spanish - that I could, mostly, not make out. Except for his name, here and there in faded blue ink.

Constantine Del Navarre. I wondered if he felt any personal connection to his name of old, and wished I could read any kind of European language that could give me a clue to what his master wrote about him all those years ago. Perhaps it was just before or after he was turned. Had he been just as measured and well-spoken in his life as well as this hungry half existence? 

Why had his master chosen and turned him? How many others had soldiered for this man alongside him? Where had his brothers-in-arms gone, and when? Where did Bo come into the picture? If I closed my eyes, I could see Con's, half-lidded, gazing back at me; in one moment imperturbably calm, in the next as frenzied with passion as the first time I had disturbed him sleeping the sleep from which self-waking was impossible. He was so like Mel in many ways; a weathered, immutable sea wall standing strong against whatever the modern world throws out, sheltering me. 

His identical black shirts hanging on varnished wooden hangers in the closet, immaculately clean and pressed. An ivory-handled gentleman's hairbrush, sparse of it's hog hair but polished with use. A few black strands clung to the bristles. Thinking they might be useful in locating him, I gathered them reverently into a thin sheaf and knotted them together. A pair of tall leather boots stood in one corner. It had been soft looking leather, but was now rotting and sporting bare patches where the boot trees showed through. Had he worn these before going barefoot? Was wearing shoes a link to humanity long since severed? On closer inspection, they bore silver buckles. Perhaps he had been injured by wearing them. I made a mental note to ask whether he would wear a pair that I bought for him. I would have to find him first.

There was no door; no entrance or exit. Exactly where was this place; how deep underground? No phone signal, but it could just be well-shielded with lead. If it was indeed wholly underground, it was likely that plenty of lead and tar kept it dry... or something. 

I wandered another circuit around the main room, weaving in and out of rather randomly placed furniture, running my fingers over lacquered wood, books, sculptures, knick knacks, chests, jewelry boxes, hoping for something to jump out at me. You know - when you've lost something and you pretend to have given up hope in order to trick fate, so that when you casually fling off the sofa cushions, there it will be. It never works like that but we all did it at one point. 

There were quite a few magical items in Con's place that buzzed; his hideously carved chest was stuffed with them, and I'd had a good look through them on several previous occasions. So when I looked again, I guess I had managed to trick fate good and proper this time.

In the cluttered bottom of the chest was a battered box, about thirty centimeters square and ten centimeters thick. A dull grey kind of metal that I guessed to be lead, wrapped around with sturdy iron bindings and padlocked firmly shut. My curiosity was immediately piqued, but an hour's worth of searching for a key turned up nothing so I awkwardly humped it out of the chest and heaved it up into my arms. 

Carrying it back through the short ways was exhausting, but I'm a baker; heavy lifting is my bread and butter. I can give most arm wrestlers a good run for their money. Nevertheless I was glad Yolande had gone to bed, so I wrote her a note to let her know I was safe and staggered upstairs to sleep. 

\----------

My sleep was fitful and intermittent, full of Con one moment, the goddess, Mel - I think there was fighting, but in the way of dreams it was remote. Pat collected me again in the grey-stained dawn, subdued and withdrawn.

"Didn't find anything," he said when I asked about his trip into the office. "It was good you called. Things were starting to fade..." he winced. "Got a stabbing headache for my pains but it's all still in there. Chief thinks that's what happens when her mind-thing broke. Kali, Rae, I've never seen him so livid. He's diverting most of us to finding her. I told him, maybe you could help like you did before...?" He shot me a pleading look, but there wasn't much hope in it. I had as good as blown out their equipment last time I tried, and hurt myself in the process. And besides...

"Pat, I would genuinely help if I could- no, I truly would, don't look at me like that. But you don't even have a commail this time. You didn't find anything to use to track her."

He huffed a frustrated sigh, knowing I was right. "But if we do...?"

"I'll do whatever I can," I assured him. "If you find anything, however small, you let me know. Oh. I might be at home more - Yolande will be teaching me a few things about ward craft." I knew she was registered; she'd been high up in one of the big guilds. All their members were known to SOF. 

"Oh, good," he said, perking up a bit. "I mean, good that she might be able to teach you how not to explode electronic equipment - hey, no poking the driver!" I had jammed my finger into his shoulder. "But, Rae, seriously, super grateful. Ow, my head..."

He stayed in the café most of the morning clutching his head and looking extremely sorry for himself, until an unremarkable car pulled up and Theo spilled out, looking just as rough. They were pathetically grateful for the sticky bag I handed them, and threatened to call as soon as they found anything.

\----------

Yolande was intrigued with the box I had found in Con's place. She sat with her hand on it, apparently listening, for almost thirty minutes.

"It is a ward lock," she said finally, opening her eyes and folding her hands back in her lap. "Notice how there is no keyhole?"

I pretended I hadn't spent all that time looking for the damn key, and simply nodded. I'm sure she had me figured out but she just continued, "it is well shielded. I cannot tell what is inside. I can only say that the lock is attuned to Constantine alone. And that I am certain that whatever is inside is something he either fears or values very much, judging by the level of protection around it."

Unvoiced, she projected: should you really be opening this?

"Attuned how?" I asked her. I didn't feel nearly as underhanded as I should have. In my mind, he was very definitely missing.

Apparently she agreed with me enough to help me code break into his personal belongings. Or maybe she just had enough faith in her wards to keep her safe, for she only gave me one of her pursed-lip looks and said, "It's a rudimentary lock. A prototype of a kind we don't use much anymore because we have better. But I worked on them during my early apprenticeship. I find the things one learns first make the strongest impression, don't you?"

I did. "I'll need something of his. A shirt he's worn, a sock, a pillow he's slept on."

I pulled out the knotted strands of hair from my chest pocket. "Will his hair do?"

"Oh, too easy!" She exclaimed. "You have excellent criminal instincts. Hold on to that for just a few moments."

She swept out, and returned quickly with an assortment of small ceramic and glass plates, and a vial of clear liquid. These she spread out on the walnut coffee table. "Put two strands here," she instructed, indicating the larger plate. "Then please take a seat and watch closely. This will be instructive for you."

I did as she asked, and leaned forward from my perch on the immaculate chintz sofa. "Oh - please fetch the box closer, dear. I need the lock within reach."

She cut up the two strands into several equal pieces on the plate, murmuring to it as she did. Then she separated them onto the various other receptacles, took up the vial, and carefully dropped a single drop into all but one. The last piece of hair she picked up with a pair of copper tweezers and briefly touched it against each of the others, then against the lock. It fell open with a clatter.

"Well now," she announced triumphantly. "I still have it! Let's take a look inside, shall we?"

I leaned closer still. "You do it," she said. "He is your friend."

'Constantine,' I thought out; one last resort. "I'm opening your box.' Nothing. I hoped it was worth it.

The lid was stupid heavy and the hinges were stiff with disuse. It smelt like old pennies and rust; indeed, some rust flaked away roughly in my fingers as I tested it for purchase. Yolande passed me a knife to insert, and I managed to lever it open. 

There was nothing inside but a feather. It was a very pretty white pinion, the kind that might have come from the wing of a white goose, with an off-centre spine and downy barbs around the base. I felt like throwing up with disappointment. But Yolande was staring at it as if she'd been stung.

I picked it up. It had a nice weight, for a feather. I thought, great, so I can make a fancy pen. 

"Put it down," she said in a strangled voice. "Now, Rae."

Alarmed, I did so. Nothing happened. She put a hand to her chest, trying to calm herself. "What do you feel? Are the wards telling you anything?" 

I could feel no change, and frowned. No, I felt nothing. That was odd. I reached into my bra for the cork. It was cleanly cut in two equal halves, right down the middle, and both were stained red. 

"When... when did that happen?" 

"I have no idea," I puzzled. "It was fine when I got back. I didn't notice it stop." Our eyes met.

"The instant you touched that feather, all my wards blew out," she said quietly. "That... thing is anathema to my craft."

"Some kind of anti-ward?" I was still unsure I should be scared, although I was beginning to think we should stay somewhere a little safer tonight, until her wards could be replaced. 

"No." She was pale, and the hand on her chest trembled as if she were in shock. "Nobody created this. It is an angel's feather. We should leave, now."

**Author's Note:**

> I have some of this written out and will post it as I edit through it. I do foresee finishing it, as long as I can stay focused!
> 
> Not beta read, please forgive minor errors and point out major ones!


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